A wide variety of patient transfer trolley products have been designed to move patients from one location to another and, in particular, to transfer mobility-impaired individuals. In a hospital, patients are often transferred from their beds to pre-surgery room to operation theatre to recovery room to ICU and back.
Typically, different patient transfer gurneys are used for transferring the patient from one location within the hospital to another. Therefore, when a patient is to be taken from one location to another location within the hospital, the patient must be moved from hospital ward bed to transfer gurney and transferred to the other location. In many cases 4 to 5 hospital staff physically lift the patient off the hospital ward bed and put the patient on the transfer gurney. This could be risky and uncomfortable to both the patient and the hospital staff. The process of moving the patient from the ward bed to the transfer gurney should be smooth, safe and efficient without causing injury or further damage to the patient and at the same time safe and convenient to the hospital staff transferring the patients.
Patients often have trouble moving themselves from one bed to another and from one location in a hospital/care facility to another. Further, in a hospital the nurses and the hospital staff involved in patient transfer are prone to the occupational hazard of lower back ache, which is associated with physical stress experienced while transferring patients. Invalid patients, especially those with fractures due to accidents should be handled with extreme care while being transferred. The patient should be kept as still as possible without relative movement of the limbs, neck, chest and other parts of the body, during the transfer process.
There are several Patents related to Patient Transfer Gurney systems. U.S. Pat. No. 4,631,761 issued to Ganmill limited has some drawbacks. It has one significant drawback wherein the endless transfer Belt causes a disadvantage during operation. The disadvantage is that when the top of the belt is moving in one direction, the bottom of the belt moves in the opposite direction. Therefore, while the top of the belt is trying to load the patient on to itself, the bottom of the belt will push the mattress (or sheets) on which the patient is lying on, along with the patient, away from the belt and the patient transfer trolley. This makes it difficult for loading the patient onto the patient transfer trolley.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,493,979 issued to Advanced Products Corporation of America discloses a device for transferring an object from one location to another comprises a pair of superposed endless belts mounted in a frame and adapted to be inserted between the object and its supporting surface. The device has gears, rollers and chains in the mechanisms to drive the belts. These require grease, lubrication and constant maintenance to work smoothly. Further the stretcher appears to be heavy and bulky to be handled or to be pushed or moved by the hospital staff.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,418,670 issued to Morgan et al discloses a roller stretcher with a pair of endless belt which are wound over respective upper and lower guides. A driving mechanism rotates one of the rollers so that one of the belts is moved. The belts are in frictional contact with each other whereby the non driven belt is moved by frictional contact with the driven belt. Replacement of belts is difficult and time consuming. Further, the leading edge (portion which goes under the patient) will be too thick due to the fact that there are 2 rollers on the leading edge. This thickness of the leading edge of the stretcher makes the transfer uncomfortable to patients and sometimes even painful. In case of spinal injury this transfer mechanism can further damage the patient and can even lead to fatal consequences.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,185,894 issued to Stierlen-Maquet AG discloses a patient shifting apparatus having a mobile frame supported on rollers, a cantilevered platform arranged on the frame. A transport band movable in both directions by a drive mechanism, which proceeding from a first winding roll supported by the frame, extends over the upper side of the platform, over the free longitudinal edge of the platform and along the bottom side of the platform to a second winding roll supported by the frame and onto which it is windable. Here the belt goes in zig-zag manner and bends multiple times before it goes from one roller to other roller. Therefore the torque required to move the belt is more. In this mechanism replacement of the belt, either for maintenance or for sterilization, is tedious. Further the mechanism has gears, chains, sprockets which are prone to breakdowns and have maintenance issues. The gears and chains in the mechanism may require lubrication for smooth operation and therefore not conducive to sterilization.
Hence there is a need to provide an improved mechanism for patient transfer gurney system which overcomes the problems such as, expensive to manufacture, prone to breakdowns, heavier to push, where belt replacement is time consuming and not conducive to sterilization and sanitization and at the same time can load the patient on to itself smoothly, safely and efficiently without causing injury or further damage to the patient and at the same time; safe and convenient to the hospital staff transferring the patients.